House Passes Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ Sending Signature Legislative Item to His Desk Ahead of Independence Day Deadline

President Trump will soon sign his One Big Beautiful Bill Act after the House passed the legislation narrowly on Thursday morning. It took the lower chamber more than 24 hours to work through the bill after conservative hardliners withheld their support for hours on end, only to realize that it was too late for them to score any meaningful victories. The House passed the bill by a margin of 218 to 214, with all Democrats and two Republicans voting no. The bill includes more than $4 trillion in tax cuts, increased funding for the military, the border, and deportation enforcement, and more than $1 trillion in cuts to things like Medicaid and food stamps. One of the GOP “no” votes, Congressman Thomas Massie, said the bill did not go far enough to deliver real conservative results. The lower chamber began considering the bill at 9 a.m. on Wednesday after the Senate sent it the legislation just one day earlier. Conservative lawmakers had been raising objections to the bill, saying they could not support it due to the impact it will have on the deficit, among other things. They ultimately came around after realizing they didn’t have the leverage to get what they wanted. “I was on the phone with the president at one in the morning, where he was talking to some more members, and he was making it clear to them that, for all the changes people want to make, the time for changes to this bill [is] over,” the majority leader, Congressman Steve Scalise, told reporters just before the vote on Thursday. Throughout the process, conservatives made it as difficult as possible for Republican leadership. During an amendment vote that began Wednesday afternoon, Speaker Johnson was forced to hold the vote open for nearly seven-and-a-half hours — the longest vote in House history — as he tried to get conservatives to fall in line. After that amendment was adopted, Republicans moved on to a vote on the “rule” for the big beautiful bill, which is a procedural item that allows the House to begin debate. The vote on the rule began at about 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday and did not conclude until about 3:30 a.m. on Thursday. Mr. Scalise says the president was critical to getting conservatives on board during that window. “There’s a broader agenda beyond this, but we have to get this bill done. It’s time now to vote on this bill. All the other things you want to do — we’re going to try to do those things later, but we have to first get this bill passed,” Mr. Scalise said. He says there are more opportunities to get other conservative priorities done in additional party-line budget bills.“This bill is going to the president’s desk in this form,” Mr. Scalise added. In an interview with CNBC on Thursday morning, a Freedom Caucus member, Congressman Ralph Norman, said the president told conservatives that he would take additional executive actions to try to get some of their priorities done. “What’s different is President Trump is going to use his powers to — like on the [green energy] subsidies — to make sure that these subsidies won’t remain in effect from here on out,” Mr. Norman said, implying that the president could issue executive orders to block some energy projects that qualify for certain credits. The bill was held up primarily by about a dozen members of the House Republican conference. Congressman Thomas Massie, who has been sparring with the president for weeks, changed his “no” vote to “yes” early Thursday morning after the conversation with the president. Conservative hardliners like Congresswoman Victoria Spartz, Congressman Keith Self, and Congressman Andrew Clyde also originally voted against the rule, though all of those lawmakers flipped their votes to “yes” before the rule vote ended following their talk with the president. Democrats had hoped until the very end that there were at least some Republicans who may be able to delay the bill as public pressure built. The minority leader, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries, delivered a barnburner speech on the floor for several hours on Thursday to try to keep the House from voting for as long as possible. “I feel the obligation … to stand on this House floor and take my sweet time to tell the stories of the American people,” Mr. Jeffries said early Thursday after taking the floor. As minority leader, he holds the right to speak for as long as he likes. “And that’s exactly what I intend to do — take my sweet time on behalf of the American people, on behalf of their healthcare, on behalf of their Medicaid, on behalf of their nutrition assistance, on behalf of veterans, on behalf of farmers, on behalf of children, on behalf of seniors, on behalf of people with disabilities, on behalf of small businesses, on behalf of every single American!” Mr. Jeffries said as his fellow Democrats cheered raucously behind him.

House Passes Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ Sending Signature Legislative Item to His Desk Ahead of Independence Day Deadline

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